June 2023 - Travelodge Property Development

The official opening of Dublin City Centre Travelodge PLUS

We officially celebrated the opening of our latest hotel in Ireland in Dublin City Centre in May. Dublin City Centre Travelodge PLUS is not only the largest branded budget hotel in Ireland it is the second largest hotel in Dublin.

With this opening we now operate 11 hotels in Ireland from Cork to Belfast under a franchise agreement with Tifco Hotel Group.

The hotel features 393 rooms including SuperRooms and an onsite restaurant called Mossco and an outdoor garden terrace. This hotel is our fifth Travelodge in Dublin. At the hotel opening a dramatic mural was unveiled, painted by Irish artist Shane Sutton which towers over the hotel’s heated terrace. The mural depicts a 19th-century diver paying homage to the hotel’s location in the Dublin docklands.

Travelodge Plus Dublin City Centre is located within the financial district on the corner of Moss Street and Townsend Street in Dublin 2. It is just a short distance from the Convention Centre, IFSC, Silicon Docks, Dublin Port , 3 Arena and Bord Gais Energy Theatre – as well as the shopping and entertainment areas.

Designed by renowned architectural practice MCA Architects, Travelodge Plus Dublin City Centre is an attractive contemporary building with glazed facades and a natural stone and brick finish, using a variety of elevational styles to enhance and integrate the local streetscape.

The 218 enhanced ‘budget chic’ Travelodge PLUS rooms offer a premium ‘Tranquillity Zen’ colour scheme with tones of warm taupe, serenity beige and light white and feature signature luxurious king-size Dreamer beds and blackout curtains to create a relaxing environment. The 175 SuperRooms, the group’s ‘premium economy’ room option, also feature Hansgröhe Raindance three-jet showers, in-room Lavazza coffee pod machines, larger desks and USB power points throughout.

The hidden gem within the hotel lies on the seventh floor which are double height rooms showcasing exceptional city views.

On the ground floor, the hotel features its contemporary Mossco restaurant and bar offering a wide range of all-day dining options. This area is designed with both business and leisure travellers in mind, with a Business Zone and cosy lounge spaces, plus other touches designed to make it easier to work and relax outside the room.

Dublin City Centre Travelodge PLUS was officially opened by Enda O’Meara, Tifco, Managing Director and Steve Bennett, Travelodge, Chief Property and Development Officer at an event attended by over 200 guests.

At the hotel opening, it was also announced that Galway Travelodge has been upgraded to a Travelodge Plus concept too and the hotel has been extended from 59 to 76 rooms, 19 rooms being converted into SuperRooms and a new stylish, contemporary Bar Cafe design. .

Located just a leisurely 18-minute walk from the centre of Galway City, this new upgraded Travelodge is perfectly located for both business and leisure travellers. A short walk away are business hubs Mervue Business Park and Galway Technology Centre; whilst tourist spots Salthill Promenade and Eyre Square are also close by.

Upgrade of Madrid Coslada Travelodge Commences

We are delighted to announce that work has started at our Madrid Coslada hotel that was the former NH Villa De Coslada hotel. The 78-room hotel with an on-site restaurant is undergoing a €1 million euro investment to convert it into a Travelodge hotel featuring our Budet-Luxe hotel design..

We acquired a 20-year lease to operate the hotel from Grupo Veintidos this spring and the hotel has been renamed to Travelodge Madrid Coslada Aeropuerto

The hotel is situated close to the Civitas Metropolitano Stadium, IFEMA Convention Center and the airport – making it an ideal base for business and leisure customers.

The Travelodge budget-luxe design includes all the low cost efficiencies you would expect from Travelodge but with the added benefit of thoughtful, stylish design and homely touches throughout its interiors. Work will commence in May 2023 and the hotel will remain open during this period with an official opening scheduled for this summer.

The new Travelodge budget-luxe design includes a timeless classic, elegant style reception, which is the hub of the hotel. A next generation room has been smartly devised to create a multi-dimensional space, by utilising the new, luxurious signature Travelodge navy blue colour for the R&R (resting and relaxing) section of the room and a serene colour palette for the functional and energising side of the room to work and get ready. Our restaurants, called the Bar Café, have a new contemporary design featuring spaces for guests to work, relax and socialise.

The new Travelodge budget-luxe design features a number of sustainable initiatives, including carpet made from recycled fishing nets and plastic bottles, low energy lighting installed throughout the hotel, with motion sensing controls, and aerated showers and taps in the en-suite bathrooms.

Travelodge opens two new hotels

London Peckham Travelodge
We are delighted to officially open our 80th London hotel this month in Peckham. The 52-room hotel is located on Peckham High Street is the first branded budget hotel to open in the area and is located just a 10-minute walk from Peckham Rye station.

Peckham Travelodge is one of four hotels that we are planning to open in London this year and we are on the search for a further 127 hotels sites across the capital. This expansion programme would more than double our presence in London and could represent an investment of nearly £3 billion for third party investors and create over 6,000 new jobs.

Wellingborough Travelodge
We are also delighted to announce that we have acquired a 25-year lease over the former Ibis hotel in Wellingborough. The 78-room hotel is located at Wilby Way Roundabout junction by the A45 and is now trading but also undergoing a full upgrade to our latest budget-luxe design.

Agreement was reached between the previous owner and Accor, the former tenant, to terminate the lease of the Ibis hotel and a new hotel lease investment was forward sold to Cooper Estates on the basis of a simultaneous grant of a new, 25-year lease to Travelodge Hotels Limited, on standard, institutional terms, including 5-yearly rent reviews in line with CPI, collared and capped.

Willmott Dixon Interiors are on site upgrading the hotel to our Budget-Luxe hotel design, with all works to be completed this summer. This includes updating the reception area, the rooms and on-site restaurant.

This refit will include a number of sustainable initiatives, which includes carpet made from recycled fishing nets and plastic bottles, as well as low energy lighting to be installed throughout the hotel.

This acquisition joins a long list of hotels we have acquired over the years and converted into Travelodge hotels. The other brands includes: Holiday Inn Express, Ramada Encore, Mercure, Comfort Inn and Days Inn hotels. Interestingly, this is the first Ibis hotel we have acquired.

Commenting on the acquisition, Tony O’Brien, Travelodge UK Development Director said: ”Over the last five years, we have opened more than 60 hotels in the UK, Ireland and Spain. This has included new build, office conversations and acquisitions of other hotel brands. We have many years’ experience in converting other brand’s hotels into new Travelodges and are keen to acquire more going concerns throughout the country. We are currently searching for a further 300 hotel sites and we are open to all development types, as long as they are in the right location for a Travelodge hotel.”

Travelodge reveals 2023 plans for its sustainability programme ‘Better Future’

We have always placed a strong emphasis on safety and security, the environment, our social responsibilities and we recognise that there is more we can do as a responsible business, therefore in 2022, we launched our first sustainability report, titled ‘Better Future’.

Twelve months on and we are delighted to report on our progress made to date and to also reveal our plans for the year ahead. The full Better Future report can be found here.

Our ‘Better Future’ plan is an outline of how we choose to operate and enable us to be: Better for our Customers, Colleagues and the planet. The plan continues to focus on three core pillars of; Inclusive, Caring and Conscious, and we remain committed to the medium-term targets it set out last year.

Detailed below are Travelodge’s primary focuses under each pillar.

Inclusive: Ensuring Travelodge is accessible, inclusive and affordable to its colleagues and customers.

Diversity & inclusion: Everyone should feel welcome and part of the Travelodge team
Social mobility: Allow our colleagues to learn more, earn more and belong

Caring: Creating a safe and healthy environment for our colleagues and customers, and ensuring their wellbeing.

Wellbeing: Improve the physical, emotional, financial and work wellbeing of our colleagues
Charity: Support our charity partners which are currently: Pennies and the British Heart Foundation

Conscious: Being actively conscious of the waste we produce, the energy and resources we consume and our carbon emissions.

Net zero: Reduce its energy consumption through energy efficiency projects. Migrate its residual supply to green sources and / or find other ways to offset any remainder
New builds and refurbishment programme: Build our new hotels and refurbish our existing hotels with sustainability as a key consideration

Despite the challenges we and the broader hospitality industry have had to face over the last twelve months, we have delivered strong financial performance and also tangible, compelling progress against our Better Future plan, with further stretch targets defined for the road ahead.

Detailed below is a summary of our progress made in 2022 against our three core pillars:

Inclusive:

Aim: To have 50/50 shortlists of men and women for senior level roles with the aim of having 50/50 in role by the end of 2025.
Progress: In 2022, 25% of our shortlisted candidates were women and 67% of roles were secured by women. At the end of 2022, 48% of colleagues in our senior roles were women.

Aim: To achieve 90% compliance to our Blueprint target for 24+ hours contracts by 2025.
Progress: In 2022 we overachieved our target and so have increased our target to 100% for 2023 and beyond.

Caring:

Aim: To encourage a further 1,000 people to train in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (“CPR”) during 2022.
Progress: Over 1,000 people have completed CPR training, by using the RevivR online training tool, accessible via a QR code promoted in all our hotel rooms.

Aim: To maintain 100% of hotel colleagues trained in human trafficking and child abuse.*
Progress: We continued our training programme throughout 2022, and 100% of hotel staff completed their safeguarding refresher training during 2022.

Aim: To maintain a phishing susceptibility rate of less than 10%.
Progress: We operate a continuous colleague testing and awareness programme. We consistently maintain a phishing susceptibility rate under 10% throughout the year whilst also increasing the complexity of the testing our colleagues are required to pass.

Conscious:

Aim: To understand our climate-related risks and opportunities the business faces and start preparation for our Task Force for Climate Related Disclosure requirements for 2023.
Progress: We started our project with a third party expert to identify, assess and manage our climate-related risks and opportunities and prepare our TCFD disclosures.

Aim: To conclude the route to operating our existing hotels in a net zero manner (covering scope 1 and 2 emissions), aligned to SBTi and set KPIs and targets, during 2022.
Progress: We completed our scope 1 and 2 planning, including a technology review and carbon footprint calculation and forecasting, and approved our plan to reduce energy consumption and become net zero by 2050, alongside setting up our work to measure our scope 3 footprint in 2023. We also developed our plan to align our net zero trajectory to SBTi during 2023.

Aim: To conclude reviewing our new hotel build specification, aligned to delivering net zero, during 2022.
Progress: We completed our review of our new build specification. We have agreed the plan, for all new hotel developments entered into from early 2023, to build these future hotels to an A rated Energy Performance Certificate (“EPC”) and also to at least a very good Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (“BREEAM”) standard, and to an excellent standard where possible. We expect to reduce our energy consumption by 35% by 2030. We’ve generated an 11% reduction to date from our 2017 base and our heating and cooling project reduces electricity requirements by c.45% at our hotels.

Aim: To reduce water consumption to an average 100 litres per guest by 2025 from c.120 litres in 2022.
Progress: In our hotels where work has completed we have reduced water consumption to 104 litres per guest. We completed 17 hotels in 2022 and 70 in total to date. We’ve reduced total water usage by 1 litre per guest during 2022.

Aim: To implement sustainable processes aligned to this plan into our procurement processes during 2022.
Progress: We started work with our top 20 critical suppliers aligned to understand how their sustainability progress aligns with the topics included in our Better Future plan and also their carbon footprint and their plans to reduce this.

Jo Boydell, Travelodge Chef Executive comments: “I am proud of what we have achieved in the last twelve months and have seen first hand the commitment and dedication of our teams in delivering our key achievements and setting detailed plans for the coming year. I’m particularly pleased that we have completed our review and plans to become a net-zero business by 2050 (for scope 1 and 2 emissions), including the programme of works at our hotels to further reduce energy consumption.”

“I am conscious there is always more to be done and we remain committed to delivering our vision of a Better Future. I am excited to see what we can achieve as a group in the year ahead.”

Travelodge launches the first Levelling Up Impact report within the UK hospitality sector

In a UK first for the hospitality sector, we are the first company to launch a Levelling Up Report in partnership with This is Purpose. The report was officially launched by the Minister for Employment, Guy Opperman MP, at Hexham Travelodge. You can view the full by clicking here.

The report highlights a number of key strengths which see Travelodge leading the way on the levelling up agenda nationally and regionally and it also outlines the group’s social mobility approach for the future.

To support the launch of its Levelling Up Impact report, Travelodge also announced its ongoing pledge to support its colleagues to ‘Learn More, Earn More & Belong with the following programmes which include the new initiatives:

An expanded development programme called Aspire. This four level comprehensive programme provides a clear pathway of development and career mapping for hotel and maintenance colleagues to progress from entry level roles through to a District Manager level. Two of the levels allow colleagues to gain a formal qualification by way of an apprenticeship.

For head office colleagues, Travelodge has introduced a new development programme called Limitless aimed at middle managers with a strong focus on good health and wellbeing being fundamental to drive team performance.

A multi-million commitment to place thousands of colleagues on the Travelodge Aspire programme over the coming years.

The UK has one of the most dynamic and diverse hospitality sectors in the world, it comprises over 143,000 businesses and employs around 1.8 million people – giving many young people their first experience of work. It is also one of the biggest revenue generators for the UK economy and plays a vital role at the heart of communities and local economies across the UK.

Travelodge is a leading player within the UK hospitality sector and has a mission to make travel affordable for everyone. Travelodge opened the country’s first branded budget hotel in 1985 and today the group operates nearly 600 hotels across the UK, Ireland and Spain. It employs over 12,000 colleagues (73% are female) in full and part time roles. Travelodge is also a gateway employer helping people from all walks of life to start or restart their career. It is dedicated to supporting parents to return to work by offering flexible working hours around the school run – so that Britain’s mums and dads can progress their career whilst raising their family.

The Travelodge Levelling Up Impact report identifies the Group’s social impact against an innovative framework of 14 Purpose Goals created by The Purpose Coalition and supports the group’s sustainability plan called ‘Better Future’ which focuses on three key pillars: Inclusive, Caring & Conscious.

The Purpose Coalition framework helps organisations identify gaps in access to opportunity, address common socio-economic barriers that prevent people from achieving their potential, and in turn helps narrow regional inequality and improve overall living standards of the communities in which they operate.

The Travelodge Levelling Up Impact report also highlights Travelodge’s work in three important areas where the company is having a particular impact. This includes:

Goal 5: Open recruitment – Travelodge ensures that employment opportunities are open to the widest range of people, working with partners in areas of high unemployment. It has an ambition to achieve a 50/50 gender split at a senior level and 10 per cent minority ethnic representation by the end of 2025 and offers flexible working hours around colleagues’ lives.

Goal 6: Fair career progression – Travelodge ensures that colleagues have the opportunity to grow their careers in a supported environment with continuous training and is able to fill around between 70% and 80% of its management roles internally. It has improved and expanded its development programme called Aspire which has already helped nearly 1,500 colleagues progress their careers at Travelodge and aims to help a further 6,000 colleagues over the coming years.

Goal 8: Good health and wellbeing – Travelodge’s successful internal wellbeing programme recognises that true wellbeing is dependent on a number of elements and, through listening to its colleagues’ concerns, has responded with a wide range of successful initiatives to support financial, emotional, physical and work health.

The report also makes a series of recommendations about potential future action that will ensure Travelodge continues to have a significant social impact, including a focus on social mobility cold spots to maximise that impact, measuring and tracking the socio-economic make-up of its workforce

Guy Opperman, Minister for Employment and MP said: “I am delighted that Travelodge has launched their Levelling Up Impact Report here in Hexham – with key announcements to boost levelling up both in Hexham and across the country. Travelodge’s new and improved employee development programme – Aspire – is a real success story and I look forward to seeing it in action.”

Hannah Thomson, Travelodge, Chief People Officer said: “We are very excited to be the first company within the UK hospitality sector to be leading the way on the levelling up agenda. With nearly 600 hotels across the UK, Spain and Ireland, Travelodge is well placed to support the levelling up agenda across all regions of the UK. Our colleagues are at the heart of our business and we are committed to providing an inclusive workplace where everyone can Learn More, Earn More & Belong. Working with The Purpose Coalition has helped us to understand and celebrate all the great things we are currently doing, but more importantly, to start understanding where we can do more to support the country’s levelling up agenda and improve our social impact across all the communities that we operate within.”

“We hope our Levelling Up Impact report will inspire other hospitality companies to support the UK Levelling Up agenda, so together we can make a real difference to the people that make UK Hospitality a world class industry.”

Rt Hon Justine Greening, Chair of the Purpose Coalition, said: “This report contains some great examples of how a company can tailor opportunities so that people from all walks of life, and with different backgrounds, can have access to rewarding careers. Travelodge understands that there is a particular need for the hospitality sector to attract and retain talent and it has been very successful in doing that, alongside successfully growing its core business.

Its Aspire programme is a particularly effective initiative which develops the skills of its employees to give them the tools to progress within the company. That doesn’t just mean promotion. It also means learning new skills or reskilling, both critical factors in being able to get on. It also recognises that measurement is key and the introduction of socio-economic questions into applications for the scheme will help to assess how well it is doing and to ensure that it can remove any barriers to progress. It’s a crucial way of supporting the levelling up agenda.”

Travelodge appoints new Chief Financial Officer and member of Operating Board

We are delighted to welcome Aidan Connolly, as our Group Chief Finance Officer.

Aidan reports directly to Chief Executive, Jo Boydell, and sits on the group’s main and operating boards. Aidan brings with him almost 40 years of extensive experience which includes: driving strategic initiatives, business growth, treasury, refinancing, risk and adversity in a broad range of sectors and PE backed businesses.

From 2021, Aidan held an advisory role at Goji Investments, becoming a Non-executive Director in February 2022. Prior to that he was Group CFO, and later CEO, at Alter Domus, a leading provider of integrated solutions for the alternative investment industry. While in role he rebuilt the operating executive team and drove the largest year-on-year growth for the business in 2019.

Aidan was Group CFO at Wilko Group from 2015 to2018 and during this time he oversaw the launch of the business in the Middle East. Prior to that he held the same role at Worldpay where he oversaw a £1 billion growth strategy, including the acquisition of businesses in the UK, US, India and South America.

Aidan Connolly, Travelodge, Chief Finance Officer, said: “I am hugely excited to join one of the UK’s largest hotel chains at an exciting time in its development. Travelodge is an iconic brand that has built a strong position as a leading player in the fast-growing hotel value segment. We have excellent prospects for further growth and I am looking forward to helping grow the business.”

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